Compartments that enclose internal combustion engines are often very crowded with limited space and accessibility issues. As a result, an oil fill extension tube may be utilized to provide access to the valve cover so that oil may be added to the engine. The extension tube may be long and oddly shaped to extend the oil entry slot in the valve cover to an accessible point in the engine compartment. The extension tube is often attached to an adaptor that is attached to the valve cover for ease of manufacturing and shipping.
The adaptor may be attached to the valve cover in a number of ways. The adaptor may be welded or brazed to the valve cover, but such a process is prone to leaking and tends to be expensive. The adaptor must be attached to the valve cover when the valve cover is shipped before the manufacturing of the engine, and the valve cover-adaptor combination is bulky to ship. The adaptor and the valve cover may be threaded, but this arrangement does not lend to a singular orientation between the adaptor and the valve cover, which orientation is needed to insure a proper orientation of the oil fill extension tube with respect to the engine. A stamped adaptor allows for only a vertical orientation of the adaptor, which must be short, resulting in limited applicability.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and apparatus for attaching an adaptor to a valve cover that does not leak, is not expensive to manufacture, is not bulky when shipped, provides a single orientation between the adaptor and the valve cover, and is able to provide any desired orientation between the adaptor and the valve cover.